


The Ghost of Geldstraat

by Feriku



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Halloween, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feriku/pseuds/Feriku
Summary: On Halloween night, Jesper is dared by his friends to break into the supposedly haunted Van Eck mansion, where he learns the truth about the so-called ghost of Geldstraat.
Relationships: Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck
Comments: 14
Kudos: 117





	The Ghost of Geldstraat

Jesper crouched in the shadows with his friends and stared up at the opposing mansion. “You can’t be serious.”

“What?” Nina asked. “Are you scared?”

She was dressed as a witch for Halloween, and even though most of the fancy mansions on Geldstraat didn’t open their doors for trick-or-treaters, no one gave them a second look as they passed by. Many people visited the street just in case, in the hopes of finding someone who had the Halloween spirit after all, and there were Halloween parties at some of the mansions. Not this one, though.

Jesper adjusted the cape he wore for his costume as the phantom of the opera. “Of course I’m not scared. It just seems like a bad idea, that’s all.”

“You’ll be fine,” Nina said. “Van Eck will be out all night long on some sort of business meeting—yes, on Halloween of all nights. The staff has been sent home, and the kid is off studying at school. The mansion is empty.” She lowered her voice to a ghoulish whisper. “At least of _living_ inhabitants.”

Matthias let out a morose sigh. “This is breaking and entering.” His costume was the armor of a knight, and he seemed to have the attitude to go with it.

“Lighten up,” she said. “It’s Halloween.”

“That doesn’t make it any less illegal.”

Jesper looked up at the mansion again. “So all I have to do is go inside?”

Nina grinned. “Go inside, reach the second floor, and wave to us from one of the windows. Just to make sure you don’t wait a few minutes right by the door before coming back out.”

That was exactly what he’d planned, too. He should have known she wouldn’t let him get off so easily. “This is revenge for last year, isn’t it?”

“Oh yes.”

On the previous Halloween, he’d orchestrated a prank to scare Nina. It had worked masterfully, and he’d congratulated himself for weeks on how well he’d scared her. When she didn’t do anything in retaliation, he assumed he was in the clear. Instead, she’d waited an entire year to get her revenge.

“You scared me in front of everyone,” Nina said. “Now you have to spend Halloween in a haunted mansion. I think that’s a fair punishment.”

Inej, dressed as a vampire for Halloween and pulling off the look remarkably well, spoke up at last. “It’s not really haunted, you know.”

“Sure it is,” Nina said. “Lights going on when no one is at home, strange sounds coming from the empty house, a pale figure seen at the window—what more do you want?”

“Everything has a rational explanation,” Kaz said in a low rasp.

Kaz didn’t have a Halloween costume. He was going as himself.

“Then there’s no reason for Jesper not to go in,” Nina said with another grin. She turned back to him. “Unless you’re _scared_.”

Everyone said the Van Eck mansion was haunted, and there were a lot of strange stories about it, but there was no way Jesper would look like a coward in front of his friends. He folded his arms. “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.”

Kaz rolled his eyes as if remembering the day they forced him to watch _Ghostbusters_. He swore he hated every minute of it, although Jesper was pretty sure he almost laughed once.

“Don’t think you need to bust any ghosts,” Nina said. “Just wave to us from the window.”

“Fine.”

Jesper waited until there was no one in sight and then crossed the street to the mansion. He paused by the doors as if he was there to attempt trick-or-treating, then casually walked around the side until he found an area shaded by trees.

Inej would probably just scale the tree and start from the second floor, but Jesper didn’t quite have her nimbleness. Fortunately, a few years of friendship with Kaz had taught him important skills like how to jimmy open a window without leaving enough damage to be noticed later.

Once he was sure the coast was clear, he forced the window open and slipped inside.

The mansion was dark and still. Everyone was out, like Nina said. For whatever reason, Kaz and Inej kept track of Van Eck’s dealings, so they generally had a good idea of when the mansion was empty. That had fueled the belief in it being haunted, since there was odd activity in one of the upper rooms when they knew Van Eck was out.

Jesper straightened his shoulders and started up the stairs.

Partway up, a creak from above him made him freeze. It sounded like someone walking around upstairs. He waited, then continued more slowly. Soon another thump from upstairs had him pausing again.

Okay, when he said he wasn’t _afraid of no ghosts_ , it was sort of predicated on his belief that ghosts didn’t actually exist.

But he wasn’t going to back out now. Jesper steeled himself and kept going.

The second floor was similarly dark and quiet. Maybe it had just been the house settling, or whatever people said old houses did. All he had to do was find a window facing the street his friends were on and wave. He was almost there. Still, this place gave him the creeps. The sooner he got this over with, the better.

A door just across the hall was on the correct side of the mansion. He’d go in there, hope the room had a window, and wave.

Jesper flung the door open and came face to face with a ghost.

“Argh!” He leaped backward in shock.

“Eeek!” The ghost let out a surprisingly earthly scream.

Of course, he should have paid more attention—this was _the room_ , the place where the strange lights and sounds came from. He’d walked straight into the haunted room of the mansion!

“Who are you?” the ghost asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m so sorry,” Jesper said. “I didn’t mean to disturb your haunting.”

“My… what?”

The boy in front of him looked awfully solid for a ghost. Pale, yes, with reddish blond curls that fell into his face, but flesh and blood. He also currently had his hands raised defensively in front of him in a decidedly non-ghostly way.

“You’re not actually a ghost, are you?” Jesper asked.

“Of course I’m not a ghost!”

“Then what are you doing here? The mansion is supposed to be empty right now.”

“What am _I_ doing here? What about you?”

Jesper rubbed the back of his neck. “My friends dared me to come in here, since it’s Halloween. We thought it was empty.”

“That’s illegal,” the boy said.

“Sorry.” Jesper frowned. There was more nervousness than animosity in the boy’s tone. “I’m not going to hurt you, you know. I’m just here because I was dared to, I promise.”

Some of the boy’s tension drained.

“I’m Jesper, by the way.”

“Wylan.”

That name sounded familiar. He took a closer look at the kid’s face. He was older than he thought at first, maybe only a year younger than Jesper. “Wait, you’re the son! You’re supposed to be studying at some fancy university.”

Wylan’s gaze darkened. “Well, I’m not.”

Obviously. But some things were starting to make sense. “So you’re the Ghost of Geldstraat.”

“I already told you I’m not a ghost.”

“But I mean you’re the one behind it all—the reason lights go on when no one is home and people hear strange sounds and see someone at the windows. It’s been you all this time, except everyone thinks you’re away.”

“I guess I am,” Wylan said.

Jesper folded his arms. “So why are you in here on Halloween? Why aren’t you at a party or giving out candy or something?”

“Because I’m supposed to be away at school, remember?”

He blinked. “Then… you just stay in here all the time?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

Wylan’s response was very soft. “Yeah.”

Jesper’s heart broke for this strange, sad boy sitting alone in his room. “So what happened? Did you run away from school?”

“To hide in my own house? Really?”

“Oh. Then I don’t get it. Why aren’t you there?”

Wylan looked away.

“Come on, it’s not like I’m going to tell on you.” Jesper laughed. “You really think I’m going to say ‘Oh yeah, I broke into the Van Eck mansion and met Wylan’? Anything you say is a secret between us.”

“It’s nothing,” Wylan said, his voice dull. “I’m just not smart enough for college.”

Jesper frowned. “Well… that’s nothing to be ashamed of. I mean, I never went to college.” Maybe that wasn’t quite the same thing, but it felt similar, at least. “I know a lot of good people who didn’t. My dad never did.”

Wylan didn’t respond.

“But if you aren’t going to college, why does everyone think you are? Why all the secrecy?”

“So no one will know,” he said shortly.

This whole situation was giving Jesper an uneasy feeling. Speaking of which—he looked at the window. “Hey, do you mind if I wave to my friends outside so they know I didn’t die in here?”

Wylan almost smiled. Almost. “Go ahead.”

Jesper stepped past him to the window. It gave a good view of the street below, and across the street where his friends were looking anxiously up at the mansion. He waved, and once Nina waved back, he turned away from the window.

And for the first time, he glimpsed the rest of the room.

“Whoa!” He walked to the desk along the far wall, where beakers and vials filled with chemicals sat in orderly rows. “I thought I was in a haunted house, but did I find the mad scientist’s lab instead?”

Flushed, Wylan hurried to stand in between him and the desk. “That’s just—something I’ve been working on.” He looked up at the clock. “And I really need to get it all hidden away before he comes back.”

He?

It had to be his father. Van Eck.

Jesper gave the vials another puzzled frown. “What exactly are you doing?”

“It’s stupid, really.” Wylan shrugged listlessly. “Sometimes I think about—about leaving. Just running away. But… I have no way to support myself. So I keep thinking, maybe I could make something to sell.”

“Like what, drugs?”

Wylan looked aghast. “I was thinking of something _helpful._ I’ve been trying to make cleaner, for example. Something that people might buy from me, or that I could use to clean for people. Or maybe different types of dye, or medicine. Of course, it isn’t easy, because I can only use things that I find an excuse to smuggle up here or that I can get if I slip out every now and then, but—”

He was still rambling, but Jesper had stopped hearing him. He lifted his hands. “Hang on, I thought you said you weren’t smart enough for college.”

Wylan frowned.

“If your great plan to escape is to invent cleaner, dye, or _medicine_ , I think you ought to studying somewhere for sure.”

He shook his head. “That’s not—I mean, I can do little things like this—”

Little? He called that little?

“—but I can’t even read or write.”

Jesper opened his mouth.

The other boy spoke before he could. “It’s not that I haven’t been taught. Don’t say that. I wish that’s all it was. But I tried to learn, I really did, but it just doesn’t… work.”

“Sounds to me more like you’re dyslexic,” Jesper said.

Wylan mouthed the word silently to himself, as though he’d never heard it before.

This was really uncomfortable. Jesper sank into the chair alongside the desk. The guy couldn’t read or write, but the topic of dyslexia had never even come up, and instead of giving him a normal life, he was kept hidden away in the house while everyone thought he was at school.

“You’ll have to go soon,” Wylan said. “He’ll be home before midnight.”

“I know.”

Unless it was his imagination, Wylan sounded sad. Jesper wondered when was the last time he had a real conversation with someone who wasn’t his father.

“Come with me,” Jesper said on a whim.

Wylan’s eyes widened.

“I can help you. You don’t have to live like this.”

He shook his head. “I can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

“I just met you.”

Jesper opened his mouth to protest that anything had to be better than this, but he caught himself. For all Wylan knew, he was a murderer or a con artist. At least Wylan had a place to sleep and regular meals. He didn’t know what would happen if he left with a stranger.

“I understand,” he said instead. He stood up. “I guess I should go.”

“Will—will you ever come back?” Wylan asked, his voice small and lonely despite barely knowing him at all.

Jesper swallowed hard. “Yeah, of course.” He managed a smile and winked. “How could I pass up seeing a cute guy like you again?”

Wylan blushed.

“I’ll see you soon, Wylan.”

“Goodbye.”

#

When Jesper reached his friends again, Nina looked furious. “What took you so long? We were starting to get really worried!”

He shrugged. “Oh, you know how it goes… met a cute ghost, might go out haunting together later.”

She rolled her eyes and Inej laughed, while Matthias just shook his head and Kaz gave him a critical look.

“Can we please leave now?” Matthias asked.

Nina threw her hands up in the air. “Yes, yes, let’s get back to perfectly legal Halloween activities for my boyfriend’s sake.”

As they walked away, Jesper looked back at the mansion. At the upper window, Wylan stood watching him. Jesper lifted his hand in a slight wave, then reluctantly turned.

He was going to need information about when Van Eck would next be out sooner rather than later.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween! I just wanted to write something short and cute for the holiday.


End file.
